Home Staging Case Study: Step-by-Step
A home staging case study. Follow these steps to stage any inherited or owner-occupied home.
Real estate agent Judy Johnson of William Raveis Real Estate in Somers, NY, reaches out to AtWell Staged Home to support her client in readying a Heritage Hills estate for sale. We’ve worked together on properties like this before, so Judy already knows how effective and economical our approach to estate staging can be.
Judy also refers her client, the executor of the estate, to my article, Selling an Inherited Home: What You Need to Know, which was recently republished in The Somers Record. The article lays out the 5 key steps to successful staging:
- Get help from a professional home stager.
- Set a budget and stick to it.
- Keep the home furnished.
- Implement the plan: make needed repairs, clean, beautify, and stage.
- List quickly.
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After reading the article, Judy’s client decides to move forward with Step 1 and seeks the help of an experienced home staging professional.
At the initial 2-hour home staging consultation, we analyze the home, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and put together a strategy to sell the home for top dollar and with minimal investment.
The plan includes painting, necessary repairs to the heating system and windows, paid junk removal, a deep clean, and staging with the items already in the home.
Keeping the home furnished is important because vacant homes take longer to sell, do not connect emotionally with buyers, and often come across as smaller than they really are. Vacant homes also send a signal to home buyers that you are desperate to sell, encouraging lower offers than are warranted.
As Judy’s client lives more than an hour away by car, he hires AtWell Staged Home to manage and implement the project.
After the high-value items and important documents are removed, the next step is to eliminate any items not required for staging, such as the TV, TV stand, and bookcases in the second bedroom.
To simplify the painting process and prepare the home for final sale, all clothing is removed, closets and cabinets are cleared, and the home is staged with the existing furniture, art, lighting, and accessories.
Home Stagers prefer to use what is already in a home rather than shopping for new items, and for this home, not a single item is purchased. Using what is already there allows us to save time, money, and have the greatest return-on-investment for our client.
The painter and repairmen are next, followed by a deep clean. Paying attention to these details distinguishes this property from competing properties on the market, as it is a truly move-in-ready home.
We work quickly to prepare this home for sale in order to minimize expenses in the form of monthly holding costs, which include condo fees, taxes, and utilities. The home is listed January 4, just 6 weeks after the initial consultation.
We do our best to show off this home’s best features and to create a space that is clean, light, bright, warm, inviting, spacious, and move-in ready. By February 13 there is an all-cash offer, and the home sale closes quickly. Mission accomplished.
Listing agent Judy Johnson’s marketing efforts also help to bring in qualified buyers. This 2-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,168 square-foot, middle Hancock unit with stairs and carport, sells in just 40 days for only 5 percent below asking.
Here’s what Judy Johnson has to say about this project:
“Hiring Susan Atwell to stage 338B Heritage Hills was the best thing I could have recommended to my seller. Susan encouraged him to paint the unit, replace the glass in any windows where the seal had broken, sort and get rid of all the unnecessary stuff, and she coordinated the entire process. When contracts were signed, she then arranged for all the furniture to be removed, leaving the unit ready for the new owners. I could never have sold the unit for as much money as I did without Susan’s professional knowledge, her eye for beauty, and her attention to detail.”
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